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You didn't mention what these doctors do. Unless at least one is a radiation oncologist, I strongly advise you to also consult someone who is.

Don't assume the surgeons talk to the rad-oncs. Surgeons at UCLA were eager to operate on my Gleason 9, even though a radiation protocol offered literally twice the cure rate of surgery. (I only learned this later.) I'm pretty sure the rad-oncs at UCLA offered the superior protocol, but the surgeons never mentioned it.

Your description of the biopsy indicates intermediate risk. In this case, the data say that your husband would have better odds of cure with one of two radiation protocols, and probably a third usually used for higher risk tumors.

Since no one has come forward with any first-hand information on Cyberknife, I am writing to let you know that there is a Yana Mentor named Neil Falcone who chose to go that way. If you go to the Yana homepage and type his name into the search engine, his story will come up for you to read. At the end of that story is his e-mail address if you want to contact him to learn more. Being a mentor, I am sure that he will be glad to assist you if he can.

By the way, in order to help members of this forum help you, you should answer questions that have been asked of you. I say this because, on March 1st, I asked you what your husband's age was, letting you know that it can have a bearing on his treatment options, but you did not respond.

The primary reason why I inquired about your husband's age was because I recognized your forum name as the Italian word for grandmother; so, I thought that your husband might be considerably older than what he turned out to be. If, in fact, he had been much older, where realistically he had less than 10 years of life expectancy left ahead of him, then radiation or surgery would not be called for. Instead, observation is the recommended course of action.

Now that I know that he is 58, there are a couple of other things regarding his age that I want to make you aware of. There are some, like my non-surgical urologist, who believe that, if you are in your 50s, then you are young enough to risk the possibility of radiation therapy giving rise to tumors in your bladder or colon. Still others, including members of this forum, believe that the more advanced radiation technology being used today makes that pretty much a non-issue. Personally, I would ask for my radiation oncologist’s input during the consult.

Also, the other factor, having to do with age, is that the longer you are alive after treatment, the more susceptible you are to recurrence. If that were to happen after surgery, then you can have salvage radiation therapy, but it doesn't work the other way around, meaning that you can't have surgery following failed radiation treatment. At that point, you would likely have to turn to hormone therapy.

In pointing out these facts, I am not saying that I am opposed to radiation therapy for someone in their 50s. I am 58 also, but unlike your husband, I am on AS (an option that is not right for him). Still, someday, I may be faced with the need to make a treatment choice and, based upon input on this forum, I am particularly interested in proton beam therapy. However, before making any move I would first do three things. Recognizing that I don't have enough information on the various forms of RT to choose one over the other, I would first take Don Oberlin's advice and read Dr. Marckini’s book entitled "You Can Beat Prostate Cancer..." for a more thorough analysis of the various treatment modalities. Secondly, I would take my own advice and ask my radiation oncologist for his input regarding my age, and lastly, I would seek out Don's advice, since IMO, he is the go-to-guy for a layman's perspective on that particular treatment.

Lastly, I am not saying that HT is a bad option either. I don't think that all. In fact, I have read some very encouraging information on the forum about it, including Fred Woods’ use of ADT3 as his primary treatment.

In closing, I just want to correct your spelling of my name. It is Alan, not Allen.

Oops. I thought I had replied to your inquiry about Cyberknife, but it appears that I actually replied to someone else. So....

Cyberknife was much more hype than substance. It was heavily advertised as the greatest treatment ever; the very expensive equipment was sold to many hospitals, which then had to advertise it to recover their investments. Lots and lots of advertising. A couple of friends assured me it was the only way to go. But, as of 2009, when I first investigated it, it had not been shown to be AS GOOD as some other treatments available. There were no long term follow-up reports. It was a prime example of why you should never trust advertising, or well meaning friends.

I have reviewed Cyberknife recently; the few longer term reports I found related to kidney or brain cancer. Re prostate, there some newer entries of celebrity endorsements and the like. More hype, but nothing of substance, no long term prostate follow-up reports.

There has been plenty of time now. If Cyberknife has not posted any long term reports, I infer it is because they are not very good. If your time is limited, I suggest that you not spend any more of it on Cyberknife. There are other radiation treatments which have do solid long term track records of curing PC. Note that this is not an endorsement of radiation in general, just three specific protocols.

Hi Noona,
I was the same age as your husband when I was treated for prostate cancer many years ago. My gleason score was higher at 4+3, psa of 5.6, and I was staged T2b (the whole left side of the prostate). I chose to have treatment with radiotherapy and have done well. Feel free to pose any questions.
best wishes
john

There are lots of types of radiation therapy. Some of them produce the highest cure rates available; others, not so good. Nothing you read about radiation is meaningful unless it states the protocol used.